And then later today, I overheard a professor — I won't say who — telling students they will be meeting representatives of 2 groups, one conservative and one liberal, and that they "would like" the liberals. These particular conservatives, he said, were more effective pursuing their aims — some field of policy that I won't identify — but the liberals, you willlike.
And it got me thinking about this word "like." What is this liking that we do — or are told to do or assert that we do — these days? You can "like" somebody on Facebook. It's a social thing. Politically, it's about liberals. Liberals are likeable. Barack Obama is — it's drummed into our heads — likeable. He's so likeable. He got ahead of Hillary Clinton for being so darned likeable, and he famously said "You're likeable enough" to her on his way to beating her to the nomination.

It occurred to me that that liberals have quite effectively insinuated the message into our brains that they are likeable, and, in particular, Barack Obama is likeable. And that doesn't just mean that any given individual likes him, subjectively. He is likeable, objectively. If you don't like him, what's wrong with you? You don't seem likeable. You'd better like him or no one will like you. All the likeable people are liberal, so you'd better be liberal or no one will like you.

That sounds very schoolyard, or like a shallow adult. Maybe if you're old like me, you remember the Arthur Miller play "Death of a Salesman," in which a pathetic man was way too concerned about whether he was well liked. Years ago, when we Baby Boomers were young, it seemed pathetic to dwell on being liked. It was a distraction for small minds, for conventional people.

O.E. lician "to please, be sufficient," from P.Gmc. *likjan (cf. O.N. lika, O.Fris. likia, O.H.G. lihhen, Goth. leikan "to please"), from *lik- "body, form; like, same." The basic meaning seems to be "to be like" (see like (adj.)), thus, "to be suitable." Like (and dislike) originally flowed the other way: It likes me, where we would say I like it. The modern flow began to appear late 14c.

The modern flow! I like Obama would pre-14c be expressed: Obama likes me. He pleases me. And why? Because he's like me? I see myself in him? Is that what we are doing? Looking in a mirror? If it feels as though we are looking in a mirror, we like him?

I'm reading the long Oxford English Dictionary entry for "like" — sorry, it's not linkable — and I run across the line in "Uncle Tom's Cabin": "I may like him well enough; but you don't love your servants." I can link to the full context:

"Would you think you were well off, if there were not one creature in the world near you to love you?"

"I?—Well, of course not."

"And you have taken Dodo away from all the friends he ever had, and now he has not a creature to love him;—nobody can be good that way."

"Well, I can't help it, as I know of. I can't get his mother and I can't love him myself, nor anybody else, as I know of "

"Why can't you?" said Eva.

"Love Dodo! Why, Eva, you wouldn't have me! I may like him well enough; but you don't love your servants."

"I do, indeed."

"How odd!"

"Don't the Bible say we must love everybody?"

"O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many such things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them,—you know, Eva, nobody does."

Eva did not speak; her eyes were fixed and thoughtful for a few moments.

Now, I certainly don't think we ought to love our political leaders. "He loved Big Brother" is the last line of George Orwell's "1984":

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Horrifying. But this liking of Obama — not loving, liking — what is it? Is it racist? You like him. You really, really like him. Or something's wrong with you. Do you twinge with anxiety that you might be racist if you don't like him? Better like him. Why suffer the cruel, needless misunderstanding, the stubborn, self-willed exile from the likeable breast! Everything can be all right. The struggle can be finished. Surrender to the victory over yourself. You like Barack Obama.

But only like. You don't love....

Love... it's so old fashioned and retrograde. It's what the Baby Boomers talked about, back when they were hippies.

I find him sympathetic, but not especially likeable. On the other hand, maybe it's just me being retrograde, but I think that rather than being sympathetic or likeable, a President ought to be a man one can respect. Or woman. A woman is fine too.

Obama is not likable. He has this smug look that he often puts on that is a cross between a smile and a sneer that comes across like he is showing off how great he is. The you tube video of him dancing while coming to the podium to deliver a speech has that look in spades. Its really haughty. Granted it was a photoshop/Flash job, but he has that look all the time.

As to why the dems are more likable than repubs it's because "They Care". They care about the poor people and the repubs don't. Of course, intentions and results often don't coincide, so I guess even if the policies cause more people to become poor at least they can say they're more likeable.

Romney seems like such a gentleman, decent, caring, may be even honest for a business man but most of all seems like wants to tackle problems and resolve them. Why wouldn't people want him at this time, instead of the (no, I will not say likeable) clown with golf clubs?

For a professor to say that a student will"like" someone about to be introduced is professorspeak for: i like this guy and I think I like you but will be more sure of that after you indeed like the guy. It is coersion. Gentle coersion.

The other style in which people are liked is due to the fact that they are never a threat, a challenge, a conflict. These people avoid trouble by avoiding conflict, by never telling anyone the hard truth, and generally avoiding being associated with anything negative. They rarely criticize, or have an opinion they are willing to fight you over.

People say they are "nice", and I like him.

To get anywhere when you are like this, you have to learn to play the room, and avoid people who won't fall for that. Political correctness can really help if you have that card to play.

If you can criticize and argue with people, and they still like you, then you've got it going on. If you can convince them they are wrong, and still have them like you, then you are a god.

Pm317. You qualify " for a businessman". Why is that? Does your barber cheat you? Your laundry? The restaurant you frequent? Your insurance agent? The guy who sells you tires? Does your banker pay you less interest than you are due? Where does this dishonest businessman enter your world?

We're all supposed to like our Keepers of the Conventional Wisdom, because, you know, that's just what decent, upper-middle class urbane people do.

Don't ever let a truly subversive idea idea invade your little world, because they've got all the political nostrums you need to live your comfy upper-middle class life & still see yourself as moral as St. Francis.

Given how many people who have had to work with Romney as equals have come away awfully resentful of him, he can't be particularly likeable. And I suspect that's because there's more than a whiff of the little miss perfect about him. It is not hard to see why that provokes intense resentment. There's a lovely little story by Saki that it calls to mind.

Dutch was likeable. A guy to have a beer with. To chop wood with. So likeable people crossed the aisle to like him. Reagan Democrats. Yeah...If only we could channel that for our guy, 'cause that intellectual hat we've been putting on our guys doesn't quite fit him, does it? Dropping his g's and folksing this and that. That'd work, wouldn't it? Yeah...

Things that are alike have affinity. So they "like" each other. And it used to be expressed as the other liking me and now we say I like the other.

Okay, that makes sense.

I agree with mesquito. I never liked Obama, never saw him as nice guy. He always seemed the "clever-cutting" sort and made subtle but juvenile jokes at the expense of others. Perhaps if I'd had even a remote affinity for his "politics of fairness" I'd have overlooked the personal things about him that bothered me most.

I don't care if I "like" Romney. I didn't "like" McCain. I "like" Sarah Palin. I can identify her as someone "like" me in some way.

The Crack Emcee said...Everyone insisting this is a phenomena of the Left is a fool in need of a mirror.

You're all doing it - and your partisan statements are the proof,..

It's much more a lefty thing. If you argue politics with a lefty you expect to be disliked if you don't come around to his point of view. Generally speaking, conservatives don't get personal - if you disagree with a conservative you dont expect him to throw a hissy fit and demonize you. Well, at least face to face. Online, conservatives tend to act like hysterical, shrieking ninnies but I think most of the time that's just a spazzy Internet thing and both sides do it.

And I've never found Obama likable. He seems like the kind of jagoff who would call the cops on his neighbors for playing music too loud instead of walking over there to ask them to turn it down first.

I don't know.. barbers, manicurists are small potatoes.. millionaire business people can't all be too honest and still make a lot of money. That is not to say I am calling every business person's ethics into question.

My GOD but you guys are hoodwinked. Delusional. Seeing what you want to see. It's simply amazing!

This IS the same man who, before the election got going, was nicknamed The Guy Who Fired Your Dad.

"Nice," huh?

If I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes, I never would've thought I'd see any remnant of 2008 again - especially not on the Right - but you guys are definitely the 180 Obots, through and through:

You can see no evil, his Mormon "church" IS a church - and a charity! Constant foot-in-mouth is competency - except in Joe Biden! Religious persecution is bad from Islam but A-O.K from his LDS. And lies? What lies? We don't hear no stinkin' lies! He's just going to reverse/repeal/replace/LIKES ObamaCare!

You like me! You really like me! (Haven't read the other threads yet; maybe someone else already did that.)

It takes me back to grade school, when you might like a girl, but the question was did you like-like her? Or did you just like her? That's why Lake had to use deep and like twice - it only counts if repeated. That's why "like" on Facebook is so wonderful. It's so non-committal. You're not saying something is great, or even good. You're just saying you "liked" it, and not even that you "liked-liked" it. That, I think, suits Obama to a tee. You've got all the grand narrative that makes you think you ought to "like" him - you ought to click "like" like everyone else to show that you too appreciate this. And hey, it's not like it costs you anything. Except that while liking something on Facebook really doesn't cost you anything, mistaking "vote" as an electoral analogy for "like" can have severe consequences indeed.

Reading this post, I'm reminded of Thomas Merton's warnings about the age of the "Mass-man". From "Disputed Questions":

“A mass-movement always places the 'cause' above the individual person, and sacrifices the person to the interests of the movement. Thus it empties the person of all that is his own, takes him out of himself, casts him in a mold which endows him with the ideas and aspirations of the group rather than his own…The individual ceases to be a peson and becomes simply a ‘member’, a ‘thing’ which serves a cause, not by thinking and willing, but by being pushed about like a billiard ball, in accordance with the interests of the cause”.

Merton goes on to contrast this with the teaching of Christ, “for whom the soul of the individual was more important than the most sacred laws and rites, since these exist only for the sake of persons, and not vice versa”.

If people think about it for a second, they would realize that they probably trust businesses more than any other profession. Entirely voluntarily, they trust them with all kinds of personal info, their money, their loyalty, their safety, their health, etc. We do this with businesses every day, and with relatively few betrayals.

The problem is that Romney's got a law degree too, so suspicion and vigilance is in order.

How can anyone like a person who perpetually seems to be looking down his nose at us? My wife says he's trying to minimize his jug ears, but I think the guy really does believe that he's better than any of us.

""I don't know.. barbers, manicurists are small potatoes.. millionaire business people can't all be too honest and still make a lot of money. That is not to say I am calling every business person's ethics into question."

But you are. Why do you assume that great success requires trimming? I am curious if you have direct experience or if this view is just received from the culture, from schools, media, parents etc. I am genuinely interested.

Clinton was the master at mass flattery. And a reflection on what he did wrong, Waco, bombing the sudanese pharmaceutical plant to get Lewinski off the front page (thank you Hitchens for reporting this, unlike the MSM), the direct lie to the entire population of the US, and still, "we" re-elected him. Or maybe it was women re-elected him.

This has to be a female thing. OK, so now I looked, here it is:

> In 1996 Bill Clinton raked in 11 percentage points more women than men, 54% of all women and 43% of all men voted for Clinton.

> The Clinton – Dole divide was insignificant among men, only 1 percentage point. However among women that gap is 54% of women voting for Clinton to 38% of women voting for Dole

BO:

> Overall, 53 percent of the national electorate this year was female, according to exit poll data. Women overall voted 56 to 43 percent for Obama; men voted 49 to 48 percent for him

> Unmarried women—a group that includes single, separated, divorced, or widowed women—voted for Obama over Republican opponent John McCain by a whopping 70 to 29 percent in yesterday's election, according to numbers released today by Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonpartisan organization.

I was reading today about a lot of little 'random acts kindness' committed by Mitt Romney. Little things that made a big difference to the people he helped.

I never hear these things about Barack Obama. never.

There is a parade of people coming forward to talk about the personal charity of Mitt Romney. And not just money charity - but something more valueble to a busy person - he game his TIME and gave it when it really counted.

But no witnesses from Barack's past testifing about how he made a difference to the people he met along the way. How he jumped up and helped when help was needed.

I never would've thought I'd see any remnant of 2008 again - especially not on the Right - but you guys are definitely the 180 Obots, through and through:

I just put the finishing touches on "Mitt is it!" song for the children's choir at my son's school, and I can't wait to meet up with the other members of the local Symbio-Mormon League to plaster our "TITHE" posters (inspired by the iconic Fairey HOPE poster)

Like someone incompetent? Like to lose one's own job because one doesn't like to fire someone he likes who is not doing his job. Like to stay four more years in mommy's basement after one graduated from college with tons of debts and no gainful employment.

A little bird tells me these likable people like to stay home so they don't fire someone they like.

So I'm like trying to read this long-ass post with all this weird shit like O. Fris. likia (which sounds kind of nasty) and I'm like, whoa, that's totally like the old Barney theme and I'm like, so that's what it all meant.

Cool.

But I still don't think Obama likes me. If he did, he'd get his pragmatic problem-solver ass in gear and fix the economy instead of moaning about how nobody in DC likes him enough to do his job for him.

I would say it is probably cultural.. growing up where I did -- quite cynical about big businesses and people who run them. I don't see the same level of corruption here but think about Enron, or Bernie Madoff, or any other names you can come up with.

If he was, I might like him - but he's not. He has nothing that says masculinity, or charisma, or even goodness to me.

All those acts of "kindness" - just Mormon I'll-use-you-to-get-to-Heaven bullshit. Consider:

In my last hours of life I would much rather have an atheist by my bedside to help me with my passage to the other side. An atheist because I know he/she is there for no other reason than to aid a person in need, no motive of scoring points for a good deed, just an unselfish, honest person. That is the kind of person whom I wish to look upon before I pass. As a theist, I believe there is only one person that stands right with God and that is one that is honest.

-- THE REV. AL CARPENTER

Or this:

Utah is a pretty great state … if you’re a fucking scammer.

You should move there … if you’re a fucking scammer.

You won’t even have to join the local religion :: which is approximately as old as Sears … although think of the networking opportunities you’d miss. Some of scamworld’s shrewdest regular offenders are regular attenders of the Latter-day Saint sunday seminar series. While Texas scammers might be teaching you to invest all your money in silver :: Utah scammers know that the key is burying the silver in the ground … it’s the little details that count.

No, that's what she thought would happen. Probably not what actually happened. It would be interesting to follow up with ole Peggy to see where she is now.

But is she gonna vote for the maker of the "Julia" world, in which she respectfully sends her kids to school, and all these things? Or is she gonna vote for a guy who thinks it takes the diversity of a Man and a Woman to raise the jungle rats?

Pm317. Well, luckily Enron and Madoff are outliers. Madoff was a crook from the get-go. The Enron story is more complicated especially when one understands they were given the green light to book future business as current income. The green light came from the SEC as I recall. All quite tragic in the end. These high profile stories get all the attention but there are countless businesses and businessmen who toil on the bright ethical side and are not heralded. The class warfare being waged now is premised on people believing that they themselves would be rich if luck was only on their side. Relish for this dish is the idea that businessmen are dishonest. It is a wrong and unethical argument however appealling to those who want to believe.

This fits in with my theory that Obama isn't much more, if any, "like" you or me than Romney. In fact, Crack agrees with the point that these two men are both much, much different from you and I and he and us, therefore the "Obama is more like you than Romney so vote Obama" meme tires me.

And let the record show both of these men starve children to burn corn so Fat Rich White Welfare Kings in Iowa stay that way.

Obama and Romney both believe in the free market, unless some poor children who need corn to eat are involved; then, as our history has shown, the free market is subserviant to Rich Welf-Agro Kings of any race from any state, some of whom are fit in the physical sense.

I know. I imagine Crack being like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter there. Once he has his fill of the women, and the 3.2% beer, and taught them the evil of their ways, he'll leave the place unredeemed, but well punished.

It took me quite a few episodes to figure out the slang when I first started watching the cop drama TV show NYPD Blue. When Andy Sipowicz 'liked' someone, they were the likely 'perp'. Seems about right in the context of this thread, too.

Crack. Why do you live amongst them in Utah.? Why would you choose to live in the middle of people you hate,fear,ridicule, mock, loathe? It appears to be making you insane.

I'm insane? You guys are the ones removing the halo from Obama's head and placing it on Mitt's. See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil - that's the order of the day - and he's got an even bigger cult than Obama does! They've murdered people, abused children, almost gone to war with the country, run countless scams on the nation, and all you can say is how "nice" they are:

Talk about "likability" being a bullshit cover - it can mask anything!

And why am I here? Simple:

There's no escaping cults in this country, so it's a choice between a big identifiable one or a billion unidentified ones.

Obama and Romney both believe in the free market, unless some poor children who need corn to eat are involved; then, as our history has shown, the free market is subserviant to Rich Welf-Agro Kings ..."

So far as is now known the Mormons did not castrate young men to preserve the purity of their singing voices for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I think Joe Biden and Paul Ryan should be made to answer for their church's bizarre practices.

I can see why liberals think Obama is smarter. He agrees with their positions and that's always a clear marker of intelligence.....I don't get the likeability thing though. Obama has considerable charm and personal magnetism, but there's something premeditated about it. I think that he's known since forever that he has a charming smile, and he knows exactly the moment when to flash it. He's not as forced or awkward in his gestures as Romney, but there's something about his charm that puts you on guard.....I think Romney and Obama are both members of minorities, but Obama's minority status is, of course, more visible. He's been aware that people notice him and that not everyone is predisposed to like him. His gestures have been calculated and refined to some extent. Romney is also a minority, but the minority status is internalized. I don't think he feels totally at ease in the non Mormon world. There's somehing forced and insincere about his heartiness......Well, in any event, he's a true believer in capitalism and that's a faith that Obama just feigns on Sundays

I have an idea what the link is (I link to Obama singing like Al Green and said the problem with Romney is that he cant sing like Al Green and Obama can) and it would only irk my nerves to hear it. Send him home so he can play, vote for Romney so an adult can get to WORK and fix the economy! I know people voting for him because they WANT jobs, we all know what the 47% video was about. It was about people who DON'T want to work.

My husband has a job, if he fails to do the job there are consequences. The president applied for the position and failed, time to fire him. He failed to fix the economy, he failed to be the most transparent White House in history. When he had the power to do whatever he wanted he decided to use it to force a new $2000 tax on us with Obamacare.

The problem is there might not be enough voters that think like CouponMom.

Lem said: It used to be, or so I thought, that you had to "like" somebody before you loved them... maybe it wasn't like that and I was fantasizing.

Actually, you fall in LOVE first. Love is an irrational, intense emotion. You cannot maintain that intensity for a very long time and eventually it will diminish. Love will not go away, it just will not be as compellingly intense, as a flame.

However, if you don't also have LIKE in your relationship, it just will not last. You have to like the person you are with, enjoy their company and be compatible.

I think that the difference between LOVE and LIKE is the reason that the media is pushing the likablity of Obama.

They fell in LOVE with Obama or the idea of Obama. Now that the relationship has cooled and the love level is diminished, they are frantically trying to find LIKEABILITY to justify staying with the bastard. Like a woman who made a really really bad decision in falling in love and doesn't want to admit that she made a horrible mistake.

Going just by public personna as it's conveyed on the screen, I don't find Obama "likeable", and I never have. I found the idea of the first Black president appealing, I found the idea of a post-racial president appealing, I found the idea of a pragmatic leader prepared to work beyond narrow partisan positions appealing, but I thought from the beginning that Obama was stiff and artificial. So I didn't "like" him, and I wonder what it was/is that makes other people "like" him.

Now Romney. It might be enjoyable to go out and have a couple of beers with him -- of course, he doesn't drink but maybe he'd have an O'Douls's. He'd probably talk about business (boring!!!), but maybe I could get him talking about baseball, I've never known anyone from Mass. who wouldn't talk about the BoSox. If he did, I think he'd be talking about how he actually felt and not what the focus groups told him would go over well. I think Obama's the one who would go the focus group route.

I don't like Obama. I don't particularly like Romney. I think he's competent and would be a much better president. Ryan strikes me as likable, but his likability - (and biceps, which I admit to liking a great deal) wouldn't amount to beans if he wasn't also smart and able.

I don't get having to like politicians in order to vote for them. They're politicians, for Chrissake. You hire them to do a job and hope they won't screw up excessively and lie to you too much. They're not your best buddy, or the sibling you never had, or your pastor. People invest these famous, distant people with qualities they should be looking for in people they actually know and interact with. And because liberals freight politics with more meaning than conservatives do, they seem to have more of a need to make pols into these idealized figures.

And when you take it as far as the liberals have taken Obama worship, it becomes a creepy cult of personality.

An interesting scripture says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Also that blessings come to us when God who turns his loving gaze upon us.

And that comes from the Ancient perfectionist Himself... the covenant establisher who gave us the Law we could not keep through Moses.But He also added his son who added the new covenant that we love one another.

IMO people are made for relationships. And we had better be working on them.

The need is for a social intelligence that listens to other words and feelings before adding our own right answers.

But poor Mitt has always relied first on skill sets for building and protecting money.

Somebody needs to ask Mitt to try to relate better to the fears and hearts of the voters. Money is a part of that, but no one favors or likes another just because he is the richer or smarter than us.

Oh for god's sake, Crack, no one here, or elsewhere, or anywhere on the right, is putting a halo on Romney's head. That's only in your imagination.

Your insistence on equating Obama worship (and all its cultlike qualities) with Republican/ conservative support for Romney as an electoral candidate against Obama (non-starry-eyed as that support is) calls into question your judgment even more than your anti-Mormon obsession does.

I don't find either Mr. or Mrs. Obama "likeable" in the least. I don't know if I would find them likeable if they were of the same political stripe as me.

I keep hearing about how "likeable" Obama is and I just don't see it. He talks down to people, he raises his nose in the air, he thinks he's the smartest man in the room because he's been told so by sycophants for so long.

Bubba was truly likeable. He was a dawg, but likeable. Hillary was (and is) not.

I think many liked the idea of what the first black president could bring to the table. Post-racial and all that. But the reality doesn't match the idea.

I wonder how much of a Bradley effect there will be. People answering poll questions are talking to someone on the phone (or at least pressing buttons to answer the questions - and the call was initiated by the polling company so the callee could be identifiable) or the poll is being asked face to face. People may not want to be considered racist. They're not, of course (for the most part - there will be a few that genuinely are), but the race card has been played incessantly almost since the day Barack Obama announced his candidacy.

--That sounds very schoolyard, or like a shallow adult. Maybe if you're old like me, you remember the Arthur Miller play "Death of a Salesman," in which a pathetic man was way too concerned about whether he was well liked. Years ago, when we Baby Boomers were young, it seemed pathetic to dwell on being liked. It was a distraction for small minds, for conventional people.---

Sorry, for a few years now, I've thought libs were still going for King & Queen of Prom.

Chrysler/ Fiat is looking to bring back the Alfa Romeo and you see a shot of Dustin Hoffman and 'Mrs. Robinson' in one historically in an article about it. 'The Graduate' illustrates the perspective you notice. 'Mrs. Robinson' represents instinct realized and acted on. This is a temptation for Dustin who remains 'likable,' doesn't cross over into that adult instinct in our view. The instinctual action like Romney's 'liking to fire someone' remains denied, looked down on in 'Mrs. Robinson' or the conservative position. Which isn't to say the graduate or Obama or the liberal group doesn't act on instinct, it's just that it might be voyeuristically experienced as the protagonist/ victim in 1984 loves the smile beneath Stalin's mustache.

"G Joubert said...And cool, hip, and with it. And erudite. And deeper. And nuanced. And just plain smarter overall."

Well - there's that image of every candidate in the Republican Presidential Primary raising their hand to affirm that they don't believe in evolution.

And all the anti-abortion/birth control/family planning nonsense. And the fake "attack" on marriage and "war" on Christmas. Stupid, pathetic bullshit...

And a much more recent example - Mitt going on Univision and talking about "illegals" - stupid and rude. His support among Latinos is way below McCain's and he still didn't have the sense to not insult them.

Bottom line - a party that uses social wedge issues to fool people into voting against their own self interest - for the benefit of the wealthiest. It's a party of chumps.

Unfortunately, it's not emotional appeal, or anything else so innocent. It's the imposition of evaluation on minds no longer able to be confident of their own evaluations, having the means to make such evaluations systematically purged from their psyches.

"You'll like this," they're told by people they like (turtles all the way down,) eliminating the necessity of the whole messy, sausage-making unpleasantness of having personal goals, holding values, establishing and maintaining standards, and declaring some things and people to be unacceptable, inappropriate, harmful, or evil based on all of that. Yes, much better to abandon all that stress and just go with the flow of the cool kids.

In some ways it's an argument from authority, although in this case acceptance of argument due to moral abdication would be more accurate.

In "Man of La Mancha," Sancho Panza sings, "I like him! I don't know why, but I really, really like him!" - and a whole lot more. The simple depth of emotion transcends logic, but seems to derive from a sense of perceived merit in Don Quixote, that Sancho can't quite reconcile with reason.

It doesn't matter whether I personally like the candidates or not. Odds are that I'll never meet them. This is a job interview, I have to decide who can do the job, and hire that person. Screw "likeability".

Dave said... "G Joubert said...And cool, hip, and with it. And erudite. And deeper. And nuanced. And just plain smarter overall."

Well - there's that image of every candidate in the Republican Presidential Primary raising their hand to affirm that they don't believe in evolution.

And all the anti-abortion/birth control/family planning nonsense. And the fake "attack" on marriage and "war" on Christmas. Stupid, pathetic bullshit...

And a much more recent example - Mitt going on Univision and talking about "illegals" - stupid and rude. His support among Latinos is way below McCain's and he still didn't have the sense to not insult them.

Bottom line - a party that uses social wedge issues to fool people into voting against their own self interest - for the benefit of the wealthiest. It's a party of chumps.

Dave.Why so bigoted?Do you honestly believe you know where someone elses best interests lay?

Lots of folks in Italy thought that Benito Mussolini was pretty likeable, too. Self-absorbed guy who stood around with his chin in the air, liked to make companies work with government. Sound familiar? It should.

Thanks Ann, finally the insight on the noetic hippie gnosticism; it's right there in the 'like'. This isn't really the world, it's just like, the world, and these aren't really our lives, they're just, like, our lives, man.

"And a much more recent example - Mitt going on Univision and talking about "illegals" - stupid and rude. His support among Latinos is way below McCain's and he still didn't have the sense to not insult them."

Obama went on Univision and said Egypt wasn't our ally... but whatever.

Would you rather Romeny change what he says for who he is speaking to? Would that make him a better person in your eyes?

I'm not Latino (nor Latina) but it seems to me that grouping all Latinos (and Latinas) with "illegals" is pretty insulting and Democrats do it all the time. As if, you know, people in Albuquerque didn't take up collections to send to the Revolutionary Army fighting the British in New England or something.

Its hard to like people who are bitter, angry, resentful, loud, obnoxious, unreasonable, who blame others for their failings, who complain loudly when others do to them what they joyfully do to others, who claim loudly to be Christians but seem to have very little christian charity in their hearts. It is hard to like people who think they deserve a free lunch but want to make the rest of us pay for it. But it is pretty hard to like the liberals also.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons Western society has lurched to the Left, is because from the politicians down, with Antonio Gramsci having down his work through the state school systems, voters tend to merely feel about issues anymore, rather than think about them: Feeling our way to the police state, without thinking about it.